Basic karate Kid Her figure finally Made it Cobra cay for the first time.
Season 3 of the martial arts drama has arrived on Netflix Friday, and with it comes Miyagi’s return favorite verse. Ali Mills from Elizabeth Shaw, a former love interest of both Johnny and Daniel, is back in the valley to reconnect with her ex-girlfriends, offering an outside perspective and a little bit of wisdom that helped eliminate the ongoing tension between the two senses.
Her comeback was very exciting in the second season of the series, which ended with Ali sending Johnny a friend request on Facebook. But in Episode 9 of the last round, Shue finally appears, arriving just in time to unite past enemies so they can begin preparing for the next biggest battle: Eliminating John Kreese and Cobra Kai once and for all.
Here, TVLine talks to co-presenter and executive producers Josh Held, John Horowitz, and Hayden Schlossberg about how to maintain Shue’s look, why Season 3 was the perfect time to bring her back, and why Ali became the “force that brings Daniel and Johnny together.”
TVLINE | How did you manage to keep the return of Elizabeth such a closely guarded secret?
healing | We have threatened everyone! [Laughs] We discussed with all the actors: ‘Don’t post anything to social media, and don’t comment on your friends or loved ones. Please keep this secret. we had [everyone] Signing very strict nondisclosure agreements with indeterminate consequences – I have no idea what they are – but that was enough because it worked, apparently. We just drove a big, warm hug like, “Hey, look around and see how special this is. Imagine how special it would be if people discovered it as a surprise. We work this way with a lot of storylines on this show. We’d probably be troublesome to work on some level. Marketing department because we always demand to leave out the most amazing and engaging moments of the marketing campaign completely.
But we are going back to that era when there was no internet. You aren’t bombarded with new clips every day and first look photos, and a barrage of material that is now common and necessary to lure an audience in such a fragmented world. We remember going to the movies and discovering something for the first time that wasn’t in the trailer or the commercial, and how magical that was. It’s hard to achieve these days, but that doesn’t mean we won’t try to keep doing it.
TVLINE | I imagine it was similar to the grand final reveal of Season 1?
healing | We did that with Kreese in Season 1. Martin Kove is one of the great heroes of the show, and we love that, but for the entire first season, there were tons of medicinal phone calls asking him to please not say anything. Once discovered, it’s going to be a blast, and you’ll be able to talk about it forever because people want it. It would just be much bigger. So this test balloon was, I say, to hide the secret with Ali.
TVLINE | Were there any plans to bring it up at first? Why wait until season three to re-introduce Ali?
Schlossberg | we arrived to [Shue] Somewhere during Season Two, after there’s been a show she can see. We knew she was aware of the show, watched and liked it. We had positive vibes about the possibility to work with her when the time is right. For the fan base following this story, die-hard fans, it’s a huge moment to get it into the story, so we really wanted it to be perfect.
We didn’t know 100 percent if we were going to get it because there are all sorts of external factors that could happen. But once we got the green light to do Season 3, that was one of the first things we discussed with Sony and our cast. We really wanted to make sure she’d be there at the end of the season, and everything worked the way that you had hoped it would be when it came time to get the whole deal done.
TVLINE | Using social media in the story that starts in Season 2 seemed like the perfect way to provoke her comeback.
Schlossberg | From the start we loved the idea of playing her character, at first, through Johnny’s eyes as she looked at her life on social media. This is something we felt a lot of people could relate to when it comes to ancient flames and friends from the past. We knew Johnny was interested in her and we loved the idea of him seeing her on Facebook and seeing her seemingly perfect life. But then when you meet her at the end of the season, it’s not all roses. She deals with her own issues, and that was the story we showed her to her and I think she was interested in, and something about a lot of people. The grass is always greener when you see someone’s life on social media, and that leads to a lot of comedy, but also some real moments with him. In the end, of course, it was poetic to be the force that holds Daniel and Johnny together at the end of the season.
TVLINE | Let’s talk a little more about the effect I had on Johnny. I like the line when she says, “You have a future to find,” as if she were championing his. What did you learn from her and why did he need this meeting?
Horowitz | Johnny’s life has been in shambles for a long time. He’s a guy who has ruined himself sometimes from his life, so to be in this place where he starts reaching out to a woman and has an anxiety of liking, ‘Well, I might get involved with someone in a serious way, [and it’s] My best karate student mother / my son’s surrogate character, “There is the usual tension. He has clearly been pinned down on me all these years in one way or another, so he can see her again and get a little flair from the past with her, but also an adult life perspective, For him, he’s powerful not only in terms of his love life, but also in terms of Laruseau and dealing with Daniel.
Her sharing of those scenes with Johnny and Daniel at the country club ended up making these two men who never seem to take a moment to think about their roles and any issues they might have to realize that maybe she isn’t. Different after all. Although she hasn’t seen them in many years, just to spend a little time with them again and remind them of who they were in high school, she realizes that maybe she can give them a little bit of wisdom that can help them move forward.
TVLINE | The scene in Golf N ‘Stuff when Johnny and Ali are on the bench outside: Why did you stop kissing them?
healing | We almost went back and forth on that kiss and got really close to saying that it might have been a real kiss. Ultimately, we wanted to preserve that moment on the steps when you help Johnny realize that his life makes sense with Carmen in it, and we didn’t want to feel like he needed a little foreplay to get there. It was more than an emotional connection [with Ali] From a physical person. This must be the takeaway there.
TVLINE | With Cobra cay Previously Renewed for a fourth seasonIs there a chance to see Ali again?
healing | We will not comment on our future plans with anyone who has a legacy from those movies other than saying that we have a long story to tell. We always leave the door wide open for anyone from Miyagi’s house to enter and exit the chain.
